Viking Treasure Hoard Reveals Trading Links

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Starchild
Is there anywhere on this island that doesn't have a history of centuries of human settlement?

By the looks of it, Wigan. Humans have still to settle there in any great numbers...

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Patroklos
Are we sure this stuff is not just loot from raiding trips? I know the Vikings had an extensive trade network, but they participated in some other activities as well.

They traded directly with merchants from the Abbasid Caliphate who were lodged with the Bulgars in Russia. The Caliphate wanted honey, slaves, amber, furs and hunting birds amongst other things, and the discovery of silver deposits in Afghanistan had set off a trading boom.

Trade from the east mostly went via Viking settlements in Russia to Gotland and then through Gotland to Denmark and Norway and Sweden, and also to the Franks, and of course to Viking settlements in the Ireland and Great Britain.

Stolpe found numerous ninth-century merchants' graves containing Arab silver dirhems, similar to the thousands found in hoards in western Russia and around the shores of the Baltic. Many of these coins were defaced with Scandinavian runes, as if to destroy their ideological power. Other oriental grave-goods include silks and collapsible balances. Notable discoveries included a finger-ring bearing the legend Allah in Arabic from grave 515, and a cylindrical glass vessel of likely Syrian manufacture decorated with bird and plant motifs from grave 542. Similar finds have been found at other trading sites around the Baltic. Hedeby, for example, the Danish-planned emporium situated at the base of Jutland, boasts not only Arabic objects, but also a lead seal dated c.840 belonging to a certain Theodosius, patrikos, imperial protospatharius and chartularius of the public vestiary, chief of the Byzantine emperor's personal security.

http://www.historybookshop.com/articles/commentary/charlemagne-elephant-ht.asp

An Abbasid silver coin found in Viking Russia:

[Dauphin]

By the looks of it, Wigan. Humans have still to settle there in any great numbers...

Why rehash the Hull joke by saying Wigan in its place? Why? Why? Why won't you just think of the children!!!

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Dauphin

By the looks of it, Wigan. Humans have still to settle there in any great numbers...

Why rehash the Hull joke by saying Wigan in its place? Why? Why? Why won't you just think of the children!!!

I've never been to Hull, and didn't read that post, so apologies.

Wigan was like the anteroom to Tartarus.

Actually a rainy Sunday afternoon in Tywyn was even worse.

And there was also Taft in California. Twinned with Purgatory and Limbo by the look of it.

[Dauphin]

"Erith isn't twinned with anywhere, but it does have a suicide pact with Dagenham".

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Dauphin
"Erith isn't twinned with anywhere, but it does have a suicide pact with Dagenham".

I was asleep on the drive through Dagenham. Of all the options, the arms of Hypnos seemed the best choice.


Barking was enough to drive me mad.

Imagine somewhere populated by retirement age Vicky Pollards and Wayne Slobs with architecture from some 60s' Brutalist architect's wet dream.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by molly bloom


I was asleep on the drive through Dagenham. Of all the options, the arms of Hypnos seemed the best choice.

I hope you weren't driving.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Dauphin


I hope you weren't driving.

Dagenham's enough to drive you Barking.

No, I was indeed a passenger, on my way back from a Nalgo weekend in Eastbourne, of all places.